Miss You Mad: a psychological romance novel (10 page)

"I moved out. Years passed. Last year, Dad developed gangrene in his left foot."

The coffee tasted horrible. It had a brown scum on the top that clung to my lip when I took a gulp. I didn't think I could actually lick it off but to maintain the appearance of enjoying the coffee, I did. The grimace hit my face before I could stop it.

Hannah mistook my reaction. "Was it gross? Was his foot green?"

I shook my head. "Not really. The doctors had to take a toe, but he recovered.

I eyed her thoughtfully. "You know," I said. "You don't seem half as upset as you did when I called."

"I guess you're good for me."

My belly felt warm. "I'm glad."

"I wasn't sure it was you."

"No?"

She shook her head. "Not when I first answered the phone. I thought it might be someone else."

"Someone you don't want to see."

"Someone I'm running away from."

That was a hell of an admission. "And can I ask who that is?"

"Shakespeare. Or more specifically, Hamlet."

"Do you want to go to the lounge?" I asked. This was simply way too weird to be hearing without benefit of a whiskey or two. "I think I need a whiskey and apple juice."

"What? That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard."

"Obviously, you're not listening to yourself."

The lounge waited only about 30 feet away, up the carpeted ramp and past the check-in desk. Even though the place was nearly deserted, we selected a booth in the farthest corner, in the shadows, as Hannah said. The bartender refused to pour apple juice into my whiskey, but the ginger ale suited me fine, anyway. Hannah ordered a Shirley Temple, saying she wasn't overly keen on carbonated products but the water in the town tasted like absolute crap.

I played with the idea of reaching my hand beneath the table and smoothing my fingers up her thighs. I got quite a rush from it. Living was starting to be fun again.

"Did you ever confront your father?" she asked, throwing verbal cold water on my fancies.

I shook my head. She wasn't getting away with that. "Did you confront Shakespeare?"

She nodded. "I'm sure you noticed the portion of Shakespeare at the front of my website."

When I offered what must have been a stupefied expression---Shakespeare? On her website? Did she remember that she painted nude on her website?--she continued, but with a heavy sigh.

"Well, I have a portion of a sonnet on the opening page. Just because I'd read it somewhere and thought it fit. I don't know much about Shakespeare. But when I started getting emails from someone who used that as a username, I thought it was interesting. You know, I like shadows."

Hannah took her drink from the waiter with an affected smile. I took my whiskey with relief. I told the young man to keep a tab and passed him my Visa. I had a feeling this was going to be as cathartic as a vomiting hangover.

"Right about the same time, I began painting that piece you saw on the site. It was the first time I decided to record the work as well as sending it live. Anyway, about two days in, I received an email that I thought was kind of intriguing."

I slurped loudly. "What did it say?"

"Not much. That he'd found a better Shakespearean sonnet for the opening page. Something about an eye playing the painter. Useless stuff, really. But he got my attention when he mentioned that a dream itself is but a shadow."

"Sounds kooky to me. Did you answer him?"

She cocked her head. "Do you think? I found it odd, but not kooky. Not any kookier than I am, anyway. But no, I didn't answer. I have a policy of only answering emails from people I know. Besides, my chat line was set up for that kind of stuff."

"What's the difference?" Chat line, I thought, I hadn't seen any chat line.

"The difference is that the chat line is run from Howard's server. He offers tons of chat lines. It's how he makes his living. It's also how I was able to set up my stuff. He's a huge help."

"But Shakespeare? What happened?"

She shrugged. "At first nothing. The emails sort of died down and I forgot them. Then I met someone at a coffee shop. Dark, brooding guy. Handsome. We went out a couple of times." Hannah fiddled with the condensation on her glass. She drew a smiley face. "Say hello to Ophelia, Daniel."

I waved. Ophelia did nothing.

Hannah sighed. "He got violent. Kept saying he knew the darkness in me, that we were partners in the shadows. I stopped seeing him." She wouldn't meet my eye when she said that, and I had the feeling she wasn't being totally truthful.

"After a while, I started getting texts all hours of the day and night. Then I started getting flowers. Tenders of affection, he called them."

Now I was truly confused. "How could he send flowers? Did you give him your address?"

She set her lips in a grim line. "I told you; we went out a couple of times.

"Meaning you fucked him," I said, my voice filled with the dread of the answer.

She ignored my jab.

"He began texting to me as if I was a character from a Shakespeare play. The emails doubled as though now he'd finally met me, he couldn't get enough. I got tons of weird messages that made my hair stand on end. And through it all I kept painting and selling. Stupid. I was so stupid." She shook her head and some fringes of hair caught on her cheek.

I reached across the table. Her hand fit beneath mine as if it belonged there. When she didn't pull away, I squeezed. "But it's over, right?"

She relaxed visibly. "I thought so. Even Howard was convinced it was over. But then a bouquet of dead daisies showed up on my doorstep."

The whiskey needed to feel wanted. I threw the entire contents of the tumbler down my throat. I couldn't speak. And at least the whiskey gave me excuse.

She, however, went on as if the devil himself required it. "I don't answer the door while I'm online. Naked, you know. But the buzzer kept ringing. It rang and rang and rang. So I threw on a housecoat and padded to the door. "

"What did you do?"

"I called the cops, that's what. I had a hell of a time getting a restraining order put on him because I couldn't prove it was him, and even after the restraining order, it didn't stop. As a matter of fact, it doubled. What good is a tiny document against such mental energy."

I wanted to help her, wanted her to feel safe with me. I stammered some sort of foolish motherly, its okay. It's okay. Hannah pulled her hand from mine.

"More emails came after that.
Some, the ones I knew came from Shakespeare, I trashed. Others came in from different accounts. He must have had a ton of hot mail accounts, because I didn't always know they were from him. Those ones were really weird; they were written as if he actually knew me. They spoke of things I'd done or planned to do. They made me feel raw to my soul.

"So you came here."

She nodded. "I got my friend, Howard, to help set up so the site would play archive video. He's been a fantastic help; especially with the archive. He wrote a program to automate and simulate my usual work practices. He even offered to check it while I'm away. Since the troubles had been going on for so long, I thought the first painting I had taped would be the best. I wasn't sure if Shakespeare would remember it. I had to take the chance. I'd always planned to go back, but I think, now, I might stay. That's why the loan. I want untraceable cash. I'll get Howard to pull my money out of Toronto, then I'll get him to come help. Then when that server's running, he'll return to Toronto to dismantle the old one. Hopefully, there won't be much of a gap."

"But won't most of your customers notice that the painting isn't new?"

"Daniel, most of my customers just want to see me naked."

"But you can't set up here in the hotel. You couldn't afford to stay here indefinitely anyway."

She sighed. "You're right. I went to the library today. I logged into my site. Of course, he's sent more emails. One of them said, I know where you are. Did you think you could just run from me? Or something like that. Anyway, when you called, I was petrified it was him. I panicked."

"How did he know where you'd gone?"

"I have no idea." She stared down at the table. "But I've got to get out of that hotel."

"I know just the spot." I felt a little like Jesus. No wonder he came all the way from heaven to provide salvation. It was quite a high.

It had been a long day for William. It had been an even longer evening. He ended up spending as much time as possible on Hannah's website. Earlier in the morning, when laughter had crept out from beneath his bed, and he'd scrambled from the sheets out into the middle of the bedroom floor, panting, gasping, Hannah was the only thing had kept him from screaming out loud. Surely her benevolent presence would be enough to hold back the evil spirits. It wouldn't matter that her presence was merely digital. It would ward off the demons as well as a crucifix and holy water could keep the devil at bay.

So he'd sat at his computer for most of the morning while he watched her painting take form. The sun moved from lighting the backs of her knees to her thighs, waist, and finally, to the bit of shoulder visible beneath a towel she had thrown across. When the light reached her hair and caught like jewels embedded in fabric she changed the position of her easel and threw the towel from her shoulder to her workbench. That was a sure sign the session was over. William's heart beat faster because now nothing stood between him and the thing that wanted him.

No sooner had he pressed the monitor button than he heard a window shatter. He wheeled about to find shards of window glass blown into his apartment. They were like odd sized knife blades littering the carpet. Pieces stuck point down into his couch. Chunks of them landed on and in the dozens of boxes he hadn't bothered to unpack when he'd first moved in. Something had come in. Something hid in his apartment. Something new.

"Not now. Not today," he mumbled as he minced around the apartment, tiptoeing around the bits of glass. "Keep calm, Willie. Don't get upset. It'll go away if you pretend you're not scared."

With his fingers laced and fumbling around each other, he stared hard at the boxes. Some of the boxes were open with bits of paper from magazines hanging out, others had collapsed in on themselves, casualties of William's occasional bouts of clumsiness--or panic. Some were even empty, with William having found enough energy to begin the unpack but, inexplicably, not enough to discard the cardboard.

Many of them contained clothing his father had discarded after Mother's death. Her clothes. Clothes she loved and Father hated. Fancy clothes she'd stopped wearing during her cancer. And to think Father had shown no concern. He'd pooh-poohed the questions of her thickened skin as a side effect of the medications and the agonizing chemo. He ordered her to be cremated and left town with his new mistress. William had rescued the boxes from the Salvation Army two days after the memorial service. He'd fought against the grief of her death each and every moment of those first days. He'd wanted to die. Only the boxes kept him going. He dressed in her clothes and wore her shoes, and read Shakespeare aloud as he played every part for her as though she'd somehow remember and re-visit this plane.

"How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to seed;"

But then came Hannah and she gave him reason to live again. He'd begun to empty the boxes and little by little as each one emptied, he felt lighter. A sherpa being relieved of his heavy pack at the end of Everest. He let them stand in the room as testament to his new self--a return to his old self that had somehow gone MIA after his mother's illness.

The boxes were now things to be feared. It was possible that whatever had come in now hid in one of them. The thought of it was simply too much.

"I'll get you," he said. "I'll fix you like you've never been fixed."

He took a running jump and landed squarely in the center of cardboard. It made a crushing sound. Nothing exited. For one second, he felt relief, but then he realized the "thing" could still be hidden in another box. He yelled at the top of his lungs and ran for the nearest bulging square. He kicked it. He kicked and kicked and kicked until he fell exhausted in the middle of the heap.

At some time during the day, the glass disappeared. The window returned to normal. While a breeze had earlier moved into the room from the smog-heavy air, blowing the curtains level and moving bits of paper, those curtains now lay flat against a dirty window pane. The bits of paper settled on the television and on the bookcase.

He logged on again to Hannah's site. And he watched all afternoon. But now she was packing up again. She took each brush that she'd used during the session, some wide, some thin, and swished them into the tin can that held paint thinner. After that, she left the screen for a few moments, William supposed to continue washing the brushes in the kitchen sink. She came back with them perfectly clean.

The hair on William's arms started to rise. His breathing grew short. He didn't know how he would make it through another period of time without her. Maybe this time the presence wouldn't be so kind. William was afraid it'd sneak out from the corners where it hid, once Hannah left the screen, and ambush him.